To Hide Amongst the Stars
by openPandora'sBox
Summary: Atlantis receives an Ancient distress signal from a remote corner of the galaxy emenating from seemingly nowhere.The Team takes a Jumper to investigate and what they find could change the fate of the galaxy, and the universe, forever. AU Season 5.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own nothing in the SGA universe. Not the characters, the toys, the made-up galaxy. All I own is this storyline. Sad.

Prologue

_The sun shone brilliantly that day – a glowing gem of the brightest yellow in a sky softly streaked with the purest white clouds. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves in the trees and spread the softest scents of exotic flowers throughout the small village. _

_It had started in the foothills of the Nundari Mountains - a frozen gust of air that had fallen from the peaks to settle for a time in the valleys below. The sun had warmed it, the quiet had softened it, and the tranquil haunts of small animals and lush vegetation tempered its violent nature. It slowly wound its way through pastures and rows of crops with no more than a soft rustle of corn leaves or a gentle push at a sedentary cow. Soon it reached the outskirts of the quaint village where the largest homes lay, ready for mischief and play._

_But it found no one. The homes were empty, all of them with nary a soul in sight of even the last one, the one closest to the market. It swept through open windows, fluttering lace curtains, ruffling the petals of the flowers adorning every front door. Still, there was no one._

_It carried on towards the center of the village, first the market then towards the village circle. It swept through quiets streets, the outlying stores showing no promise or hope. Each storefront had been swept clean, and in retribution, the wind took great delight in blowing a smattering of dust on each and every one. _

_A flash of pink disappeared around a corner. Just the faintest, the quickest of flashes but this wind was quicker, blowing towards the bend, around it and up onto the skirt the pink was attached to. It ruffled the skirt and flattened the back of the blouse. It blew up into wispy blonde curls until they flew forward into the bright green eyes of the young girl they belonged to. The wind stole the lively tune she'd been humming and carried it away to be sung for someone else._

"_Oh!" and she let out a delighted laugh as the wind sped away, off to find another soul for more mischief._

_The girl quickly shook her head to set her hair back in place and rearranged her skirts about her legs, then changed her mind and picked up her skirt in both hands as she quickened her pace. She was late as it was, and her mother would listen to no excuses this time. Missing the Ceremony was unheard of in her mother's household and tardiness greatly frowned upon. And yet, she couldn't help but stay back a few extra moments when the streets were all empty and everything was quiet and still. She could just stand in the once-bustling market outside her mother's craft shop and for once see no clouds of dust flying about or see her precious flowers being crushed underfoot by careless children. Everything was perfect on this day and sometimes she wished these moments would last forever._

"_Lyria!" a sharp voice called out from amongst the crowd in the village circle. She could make out the altar atop the podium in the middle but the priest and priestess were nowhere to be seen. The Ceremony hadn't begun yet._

"_Where have you been, child? The Ceremony is about to begin and I've left your younger brothers alone to come search for you, when you should be the one to have more sense." A small, plump woman appeared out from between two taller men, grasped her gently by the arm, and tugged her into the fold of people. "Every year you disappear and every year I have to come looking for you. Every year I leave your brothers alone with your father and every year one of them gets lost until nightfall." She quickly and efficiently made her way through the press of the crowd. She applied a gentle nudge on a child, a more insistent push on the village blacksmith and a quick smile to soften that blow. "Creation knows I love that man, but how he spends so much time in his head and so little watching for their mischief is beyond even me sometimes." _

_Lyria allowed a small smile to grace her lips and swallowed a giggle at her mother's words. This was her way. Always quick, always efficient, never mean-hearted, but always determined to get her way._

_They made one final push and reached the front steps of the temple where her father stood waiting with three of her four brothers sitting by his feet. Lyria's mother threw up her hands and her father shrugged his shoulders in amused defeat. Her mother, mouth open, finger pointed, was ready to launch into another tirade when the clap of bells rang forth from behind the temple doors._

"_Sshhhh. It's starting." Lyria let out in an excited whisper. _

_The great stone doors of the temple slowly eased open and Lyria bent as far forward as she could to try and get a glimpse inside. The clap, clap, clap of bells grew louder and clearer, until at last two feet stepped over the threshold and into the light of the sun. _

_The light dazzled as it glinted off the pure white robes of the priest and priestess, spreading past their feet and continuing forward, up over the delicately braided gold ropes that signified their Order. Hers swiftly coiled about her waist, his hung across his chest from one shoulder to the other. Their hoods were pulled up and their heads bowed down as they made their way down each step, each footfall timed perfectly with the chiming of the bells, each step taken in perfect unison._

_They walked purposefully through the crowd as it parted before them, moving towards the altar in the center of the circle, in the middle of the crowd of people. They glided up the steps leading to the top of the platform. They rose above the crowd so they could be easily seen and easily heard, and there they stood, one facing north and the other south. Here they raised their heads and pulled down their hoods. Here they raised their arms. Here the bells, the chatter, the whispers; here it all stopped. _

_Nobody bowed or genuflected or averted their eyes. These were simply people. They were not the Worshipped. There were the Voices to be spoken together, point and counterpoint – the male and the female, the high and the low. The balance personified in them, in this ceremony, as it was in all things. _

"_We are here on this most holy of days, the Day of Creation." they spoke together, their voices carried by the wind. That mischievous, playful wind now tamed by the importance of this day, the weight of its meaning. It carried their voices to the farthest person to be heard as loud and clear as by those nearest._

"_We are here to rejoice and to celebrate. To mourn those lost this year past and to pray for new life. We are here to remember." The Voices paused, allowing their audience to think and to recall, to fully understand._

_This was it. This was the part Lyria eagerly awaited every year from the end of each Ceremony to the beginning of the next. _

_Now the Voices moved in unison towards the altar facing east. The sun cast its warm glow on their faces. Basking the podium, the gathered crowd, the village, in its warmth and light. He placed his right hand upon the stone tablet on the altar, she her left, and they looked out towards the excited, expectant faces of their people. Long ago they had sworn their oaths, pledging their lives to the Gods, and ultimately, to the people. They had sworn a solemn vow to protect this timeless custom so that the deeds of the Gods and of their ancestors would never be forgotten._

"_This is your story. This is my story. This is our story. The story of how we came to pass here on this protected land, safe in the warm embrace of the Sen'dae. This is how true life began."_


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The little baby boy squirmed in his mother's arms. He'd been bathed and creamed. His belly nuzzled and toes tickled. He'd been hugged and kissed and finally clothed, only to be hugged and kissed some more. She'd been hesitant to let him go, reluctant to relinquish her precious baby and only love to another's waiting arms. It meant she had to leave. Not forever - never forever - but even a moment without him was too long for her. Teyla had come too close to losing him, to never having him, to ever wish to let go. But she had a duty and a responsibility to her people, and now to her son, Tagan.

She had named him after her father. She had wanted to give him a name of strength and of bravery, one that he would be proud to carry as he grew into adulthood. Is that why she hadn't given him his father's name, either of them? She had once thought of Kanaan as a born leader, albeit one unaware of his own abilities, but born to lead nonetheless. She'd thought him brave, but cautious. Had she been so wrong about him?

Teyla's instincts had never failed her before. They had led her to Atlantis, led her to trust the armed strangers when others would have cast them out. Truthfully, she had only trusted one but it had been the right choice all the same.

Now Teyla was more wary. She was less ready to trust herself than she'd ever been, and now was when she had to go back to Atlantis.

"Come now Teyla. He'll be fine. Tagan will be under the watchful eyes of every Athosian. You'll have nothing to worry about."

Mareena extended her arms and gently scooped the squirming body out and against her chest. Tagan, glad to have the attention of someone new, gleefully grabbed at her long, dark locks with wet fingers and pulled them closer towards his mouth. Mareena deftly pried his hands off and replaced her hair with a toy of his own which he promptly placed between his gums. She laid a soft kiss against his temple and looked over his dark curls into Teyla's sad eyes.

"Teyla," Mareena chided, reaching out with her empty hand to grasp one of Teyla's, "this does not mean you're abandoning him. You love this little boy. We know it and trust me he knows it. He is safer here and more well cared for then he would be on Atlantis. He is among his people and his people love him. Teyla," She forced her gaze up with her finger, "You are doing the right thing."

Teyla let out a long slow sigh. There were tears threatening to fall and her throat felt hoarse, but she looked up and laid a hand on Tagan's cheek.

"I know." She caressed his plump cheek and bent forward to press a kiss to the top of his head. "But it does not make it any easier to leave. Even knowing I will not be gone long. Knowing -" She couldn't get the rest out, could not - would not - give voice to that possibility.

"Teyla. We're ready to leave," Major Lorne called out from the waiting Jumper. Two marines had just finished unloading the supplies from Atlantis and were preparing for the return trip.

"Yes. I am coming." She kissed Tagan once more, squeezed Mareena's hand in silent thanks, and turned to make her way aboard the Jumper.

She walked quickly, changing her mind about looking back about a dozen times before she made it aboard the Jumper, but when she reached the ship, she found she couldn't just climb aboard and leave. She stopped at the threshold and turned her head back towards the settlement, taking in the sight one last time.

A fire glowed in the midst of the huts and tents. Meat was roasting on a spit while her people rationed out the new supplies: blankets, furs, some basic foodstuffs. This world was colder than New Athos and the climate wouldn't allow for sowing of seed for at least another month. They had to make do with what Atlantis could supply for them or what little they could trade for. Michael had taken too many good people; too many friends had been lost and too many families had been broken by his anger and quest for power.

Teyla realized her hands had turned into fists at her sides. She forced herself to relax and look at her son - the son they had managed to save from Michael's grasp and resultantly foil whatever nefarious plan he'd had in store for Tagan. She gazed longingly at her boy, her heart swelling with love and pride that he had grown so big and bright and handsome. And then she ordered herself to snap out of it.

She waved one last time and watched as Mareena picked up his little hand to wave back at his mother. Teyla let out a little laugh as he pulled it out of her grasp and back into his mouth. But he stared back at her with Kanaan's dark eyes and her own long lashes sweeping his cheeks every time he blinked, and Teyla thought he understood.

Then she stepped back as the rear hatch began to close and didn't turn away until it was sealed and locked in place. Even then she found she couldn't turn around. Teyla breathed in slowly, breathed out slowly, and as she had done for years, she did now to steady her mind. She wiped all thoughts of Michael and Kanaan from her mind and pushed her thoughts of Tagan forward. It was him she should be thinking of, him she would use to calm her mind and focus her thoughts. It was him she would come back to. Always.

* * *

Dr. Rodney McKay rubbed his bleary eyes with the heels of both hands and blew out a short sigh. He stared unseeing at the computer screen and wondered for the thousandth time if maybe all the concussions he'd received over the past four years and all the radiation he'd been exposed to since arriving on Atlantis hadn't finally diminished his great intellect. This was going nowhere and was making less sense now than it did when the damned distress call had first popped up on the deep-space scanner.

Zelenka had been the first to spot it during a routine check in the Control Room. The signal had been weak but definite, impossible to deny. The signal was undoubtedly Ancient.

Rodney let out a frustrated breath this time and grabbed his tablet, pressing furiously and rapidly on the screen as he stood up and began to pace. That should have been the first clue that this was going to be anything but simple. The Ancients, when they'd been human, had done nothing simply and had very rarely left behind maps to even their most complicated of endeavours. A fact that plagued the expedition every time they dared venture into previously unexplored parts of the city, and every time they opened the door to another lab. A fact that plagued Rodney whenever he stopped and looked around him at all the new faces, whenever he had to rack his brain to remember the name of the scientist he was mercilessly berating. He didn't do either very often. Berating he did a lot - looking and remembering he tried to keep to a minimum.

"You have the location of that distress call yet, McKay?" Lt. Col. John Sheppard leaned his tall, lanky frame back against the wall of the lab, arms crossed over his chest, hair standing at attention.

Rodney scowled at the sight. "I had the location the moment it popped up on the scanner. Determining the location has never been the problem. The problem and it is a problem, a whopper, is that because our dear Ancients never saw fit to do anything halfway-"

"Reminds me of a certain astrophysicist."

Rodney turned the full force of his glare on the impudent colonel as he finally stopped his pacing. He stood facing Sheppard and just took a moment to gather his witty salvo.

"The problem, McKay? Before we're all too old and tired to care anyway?"

John Sheppard was not an impatient man. He understood the importance of waiting for the right time before striking, of taking your enemy by surprise with a well-timed and well-planned attack. He was not, however, patient when it came to getting what he wanted or doing what he deemed necessary. In those situations, expediency was of the utmost importance and Rodney McKay tended to complicate matters.

He knew Rodney was tired, frustrated, and angry at not being able to decipher this matter. A theory of his that had been confirmed when a stream of scientists walked into the Mess Hall trailed by Zelenka, angrily spouting Czech and gesticulating wildly. Didn't mean he'd go easy on the man.

"There's nothing there," Rodney finally responded, accentuating every word. He threw up his hands and shoved the tablet straight into Sheppard's face. "See? Nothing. No planet. No ship. No asteroid. No measly piece of rock or shrapnel left over from an explosion or attack that any kind of beacon could have hung onto long enough to send off a signal. Nothing. The signal is completely stationary, so it's not a beacon just floating around in space, but there's nothing there."

Sheppard pushed the tablet away with the back of his hand and shoved off from the wall. He saw McKay's red-rimmed eyes and the resolve behind the blue, and so chose his next words carefully and said them slowly. "Obviously that's a mistake." Or not so carefully.

Rodney's back straightened and his eyes hardened until they resembled ice chips. John Sheppard of the U.S.A.F., trained in helicopter flight and military tactics, was telling him, the most brilliant mind in two galaxies, that he'd made a mistake. If Rodney hadn't already spent a sleepless night on this issue and hadn't already entertained the notion, the idea may very well have been laughable. As it was, the suggestion was unforgivable.

"Do you have a PhD in astrophysics? Can you run all the necessary probes to determine the nature of this signal? Could you even interpret the long series of numbers and symbols that appear in the results? If that happens to be the case, then please be my guest. Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee, a donut perhaps, while you work your magic?"

John rolled his eyes at the outburst, but took the proffered seat anyway. He had no intention of doing any such thing, but the opportunity to incite fury in McKay was one he never turned down. "So what do you know then?"

"Figures." Rodney took a seat on the next stool over and rubbed at his face again. He should be used to feeling perpetually tired, but it just wasn't happening. "I know that the signal has to be coming from somewhere, that it's Ancient, and that we're the only ones picking it up."

John swiveled lightly in his seat and bit his lip as he quickly considered the options. Decision made, he turned back towards Rodney. "Briefing room in ten minutes." He got up and walked towards the doors to the lab, but paused and turned back once more before leaving. "Teyla and Ronon are already there."

He watched Rodney's eyes light up and nearly chuckled at the flash of excitement on his face at the prospect of having their team reunited. Truth be told, he was thrilled about it himself. Far be it from him to begrudge Teyla her time with her son but the constantly rotating stream of marines had grown wearisome and nobody could quite reproduce her unique brand of calm and collectedness. Not to mention the ass she could kick when the occasion called for it. Which it did, often and without remorse.

Rodney's face sobered fast when he realized what the Colonel planned to do. "Woolsey'll never sign off on it. Not to mention that it's a bad plan." His hand sliced through the air desperately. "Bad plan. Who knows what's out there? These are the Ancients we're talking about. Not exactly known for cute and cuddly and safe."

John's eyes darkened at the mention of their new base commander. "I'll take care of Woolsey. You just get that location and make it to the briefing room in ten minutes."

Refusing to engage in another shouting match about the matter, John swiftly left the room and shut the door behind him, effectively cutting off Rodney's protests. He continued down the hall at a brisk pace, running possibilities in his head and cursing whomever appointed Woolsey as base commander, wishing, not for the first time, that Elizabeth was still around.

* * *

"Absolutely not. It's out of the question. Listen to yourself, Colonel Sheppard." Woolsey shook his head and pressed both hands onto the top of the briefing room table, as he leaned forward and gazed sharply at the Colonel's mutinous face. "We don't know what's out there-"

"Precisely why I'm proposing we go."

Woolsey ignored that and continued. "Dr. McKay has admitted as much. And you want to send a send a team out to investigate what could very well be a trap. And not even a very convincing one at that?" He was outraged. He'd heard some outlandish things out of Sheppard during his seven months in Atlantis, but this was ridiculous. Sometimes he felt certain the Colonel only did this to deliberately undermine his position. Well, not today.

"We have no reason to believe that there are any living Ancients left anywhere in this galaxy and you want to head blindly towards a distress call? It's not even an original trap."

"We had no reason to believe the Ancients were alive once before but, oh look, some of them made it back. The transparency of the ploy is exactly why this probably isn't a trap, and precisely why it needs to be investigated," John replied angrily.

He wanted to rake a hand through his hair. He wanted to just grab his team and go, but the damn bureaucrats had taken over his city and he was instead forced to play political hopscotch with Woolsey.

"We know that the Ancients have given shields and other means of protection to civilizations in the past. Why not distress beacons? Would they not want to supply those they protect with the means to be protected should the need arise?" Teyla offered diplomatically.

John allowed himself a quick glance and smile of gratitude in her direction before he turned back towards his opponent. He saw Woolsey consider this option and saw his resolve begin to crumble. The man was truly too easy to read. John readied himself to serve the killing blow to Woolsey's argument when Ronon spoke up.

"The Wraith don't work the way you're thinking. And that part of the galaxy is too far away from their part, with too little opportunity for culling to warrant a trip over that way. They're too busy fighting each other to worry about us right now and the only other possibility is the Replicators. Who we know are gone. So what's the hold up?" Ronon leaned back in his chair and shifted his gaze over to the bald man with the glasses, who presumed in error to know anything about running an OP.

"Am I the only one remembering a certain Wraith with access to certain technologies and a certain tendency towards killing us?" Woolsey snapped.

John shot a glance over at Teyla. Her body had gone still at the mention of Michael and her eyes had turned hard. Seven months hadn't been long enough to dull her fury over what he'd tried to do to her and her child. John wondered if any amount of time could ever heal that wound.

He shifted his focus back over to Woolsey and prepared to return to fire. He didn't get the chance.

"We're not fresh off the boat. This is not our first foray into the business of triggering traps set by our enemies. We have scanners and probes and a cloaked Jumper. Last I checked, Michael didn't have the technology to see through that," Rodney noted sharply.

Woolsey opened his mouth to reply but Rodney narrowed his eyes and spoke again before he could.

"And after spending weeks going through the databases we managed to salvage from his warehouse, I am the most qualified to know," he declared, folding his hands on the tabletop and raising his chin, the disdain plain on his face.

"We need to know either way if it is or isn't him," John piped in, happy to have his teammates' support. "But chances are higher that this is in fact an Ancient distress beacon and as such has to be investigated."

Woolsey slowly took his seat again. He may not have been the bravest of men, but neither was he a coward. He wasn't opposing this plan merely to be difficult or out of fear of raining destruction down on the city he was now commanding.

He inwardly winced at the thought. He hadn't expected the promotion to base commander. For all his bluster, previous experiences with this expedition had left him unsure if he'd ever really wanted this position. But he'd been determined to make the situation work. He didn't always see eye to eye with Col. Sheppard, he almost never did actually, but he hadn't made any colossal mistakes yet, and he hadn't planned on starting today. It looked, however, as if that decision had been taken out of his hands. He couldn't really argue with the reasons put forth by Sheppard's team. Maybe just this once, he'd defer to their knowledge and experience. Woolsey wanted to laugh bitterly at the thought, but choked it down. This wouldn't be the last time he deferred.

"You take a Jumper through to the nearest gate-"

"M1K-439 is the closest and from there-"

Woolsey interrupted Rodney's interruption. "From there you will proceed cloaked and carefully, staying out of range of any possible type of scanner. You will identify the situation and report back before proceeding any further." Woolsey caught the eyes of every person in the room – Teyla's wary ones, Ronon's defiant, Rodney's impatient, John's inscrutable. "Understood?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Woolsey," John said irreverently, cocking his head to the side as he leaned back and let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Then I think we're done here. Be ready to leave in one hour." That said, Woolsey gathered his papers, stood up, and walked without a backward glance through the opening doors.

John let a grin slide over his face and the corners of his hazel eyes crinkled in amusement and relief. He slowly looked at each of his teammates and, not for the first time, took a few moments to appreciate the people he had working with him. They may not have agreed with his proposed OP, but they had his six when it mattered. All of them. He shifted his gaze over to Teyla and met her smiling eyes and raised eyebrows with a shrug of his own.

Ronon, ever impatient for excitement, was the first to stand up. "What are we waiting for now? You heard the man. Let's gear up." He grabbed McKay by the scruff of his neck and pulled him up and out of his chair.

"Hey-" Rodney's indignant yelp was cut off by Ronon.

"Let's move, McKay. Maybe if you get a head start, we won't be left waiting this time."

Rodney's defensive outburst at the attack rang through the corridors and John's shoulders shook as he listened to it fade.

Teyla found she was taking longer to get up and get ready than normal. It turned out that she had missed this. Had missed her team. It wasn't the same as with Elizabeth or Col. Carter, but she had felt that rush at the thought of the next mission, the excitement that came hand in hand with planning the details. She let it all sink in a moment longer, then stood.

"I will meet you in the ready room, Colonel?" she inquired of him. He still sat in his chair, a satisfied look on his face.

"Sure." John looked over at her once more, and stopped her before she could leave. "Teyla?"

"Yes John?" She placed a hand on a doorframe, spinning back to face him again. He was still sitting there. Still looking satisfied. Maybe she had missed something in the time she'd been with her people. She waited for him to speak, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her right ear.

"I'm glad you're back."

Teyla smiled broadly at this and inclined her head towards him. "I am glad to be back, John." With one last nod towards him, she turned and walked in the direction of the ready room, Rodney's voice growing louder with every step. She couldn't help but grin again.

Oh yes, John thought, as he swiveled idly in his chair. He was very satisfied.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Again. I own nothing except what was produced in my pretty, little head. That includes nothing owned by MGM

Chapter 2

Richard Woolsey was not a stupid man. He had not one, but two degrees from Harvard to lend credence to this fact. He'd been a top agent for the NID for years before being appointed the U.S. representative to the IOA. He was a man with great respect for the truth and responsibility, and therefore saw it as his responsibility to expose truths and to fight for them. After all, it meant nothing to believe if one never made that belief known.

He'd made mistakes in the past. He was proud enough and honest enough to feel shame and regret for some of his past actions. He was also honest enough to have owned up to them, and that meant something too. He regretted being wrong, but he would never regret having spoken up in the first place. Maybe that was his problem, he thought ruefully. Maybe he needed to speak less and listen more. Nearly everyone on this base knew both the city and the galaxy better than he did. Maybe he should just relinquish his command to Sheppard. The man had made it clear as day over the past seven months that this city might not be big enough for the both of them. Most of the expedition regarded Sheppard as their leader anyway.

Woolsey wearily removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He leaned forward with his elbows on the balcony ledge and held his head in his hands. With his eyes closed he could pretend he was back in his apartment in Washington D.C, a tumbler of scotch sitting beside him, instead of on a balcony on Atlantis with his tablet beside him and a roomful of people waiting for his orders behind him. This balcony at least afforded him the illusion of privacy and he'd take even that small comfort at this point.

Since arriving on Atlantis, he could count on one hand the number of moments he'd spent alone. And if he added his radio into consideration, then he hadn't been alone once since taking command. Before arriving here, he'd been a man of order and schedule. He went to work during the day and often made it back home by nightfall. The days he'd spent fighting for his life had been few and far between. That had all changed in the blink of an eye.

His superiors had decided that a strong military presence was no longer needed in Atlantis, and after deciding that they couldn't just summarily remove Col. Carter, they'd given her command of a new ship, the Phoenix, and appointed him Commander of Atlantis. Even thinking about it, now months later, left him incredulous. He'd been tempted to turn it down, to be honest and responsible and tell them he wasn't up to the task. He remembered his actions during the Asuran takeover of Atlantis and they didn't exactly leave him feeling proud or capable or in any way certain of his leadership abilities. But he could be selfish too, and if nothing else, he wanted this chance to make amends and to prove that he was more than a mere bureaucrat. So he'd accepted the offer, packed his bags, paid the neighbour down the hall to dust every so often, and said goodbye to Earth. Fatalistic maybe, but though numerous forays off-world with SG-1 and then the Atlantis expedition had taught him to be ready to die, he wasn't.

"Enough," Woolsey whispered. He'd never been one for pity parties before. It looked like a lot of things had changed recently.

A soft pop came over his radio and sounded in his left ear.

"Mr. Woolsey?" Chuck's voice rang over the frequency.

Woolsey straightened up, placed his glasses back on his face, and made sure his uniform was properly in place before responding. "Woolsey here. Is Sheppard's team ready to go?"

"Yes, sir. They're standing by in Jumper 1."

Woolsey spared one last glance for the vastness of the city, his city, discarded the remnants of his doubts, and felt his confidence surge. He activated the balcony door and stepped into the Control room.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Woolsey waited a beat before continuing. "I want no heroics. This is a recon mission. You find out where that signal is coming from and you bring your team and the data back to Atlantis. We'll sort out the rest once we have more information."

"I got that the first time, thanks," Sheppard's voice rang out over the intercom, the insolent tone not lost on anyone.

Woolsey was nonplussed by the inherent defiance in Sheppard's voice. They would come to an understanding soon enough.

"Dial the gate."

The stargate sprang to life as McKay, Woolsey guessed, began the dialing sequence for M1K-439. This would never get old, he thought. Sure, he'd been terrified the first time. Who wouldn't be at the thought of being taken apart molecule by molecule, and thrust threw a glowing blue puddle at unimaginable speeds to be reassembled light years away on another planet? But watching this technological marvel come alive, as the event horizon began to form, forcing itself out in a giant rush before settling back into a glittering, gleaming pool of blue, that had never terrified him.

"Good luck," Woolsey said, surprised to hear himself speak.

There was a pause and then he heard Teyla's voice. "Thank you, Mr.Woolsey. But I should hope we won't be needing it."

He heard the softness in her voice, the gentle insistence at civility, and was glad for it. Maybe some of her would rub off on Sheppard. Maybe that was all he really needed to make this job easier.

Woolsey watched somewhat wistfully as the Jumper sprang forward and disappeared through the event horizon. Then he thought of the cold vacuum of space, of the sickness he felt despite the inertial dampeners, and managed to squash all envious feelings in their infancy. He watched as the blue glow disappeared, only to come to life again a moment later.

The sirens in the Control Room began blaring and Woolsey looked over at Chuck at the controls.

"Incoming wormhole." Sometimes the redundancy of Stargate protocol was enough to make him laugh. "It's Major Lorne's IDC, sir."

"Lower the iris and let them through."

Woolsey turned and walked towards the stairs leading down to the stargate. He met Major Lorne at the bottom of the steps.

"I take it the re-supply mission to M2R-441 went smoothly?" Woolsey inquired, following the major as he made his way to the infirmary. The local population of that planet had not so long ago been culled by the Wraith and was suffering from food shortages and disease during what was turning into one of their worst winters on record.

"Not a hiccup. Rationed out the supplies as best we could. Tried to get the medicine out to everyone, but a lot of them are still wary." Major Lorne shook his head. This was the part of the job he both loved and despised. Encountering new civilizations, however primitive, was always a thrill. Not being able to help those that needed it was another story.

He stepped into the infirmary and scowled at the sight of the beds and equipment and promise of needles to come. He turned his head and looked over at Woolsey. He was still making up his mind about the man.

"We did happen to run into an old-" Lorne hesitated, searching for the right word. "-aquaintance. Wanted to talk to Dr. Weir. I told him I'd see what I could do."

"We'll go into details during your debriefing." Woolsey gestured towards an empty bed. "Right now, Dr. Keller has to make sure you're not going to infect us with whatever bugs you managed to pick up on your mission." Small talk over, the safety of another team assured, Woolsey left the major in the capable hands of his infirmary staff and went on to take care of the multitude of things he had left to accomplish before he could even think of sleeping.

"Oh joy," Lorne muttered under his breath. He jumped up onto the infirmary bed anyway and rolled up his sleeve. He'd done this too often by now to waste any more time than absolutely necessary in this place. Still, he thought to himself as he watched Dr. Keller begin her walk over, it was tempting sometimes.

"Hey Doc. I promise I didn't touch any strange plants this time." He grinned at her, more to try and ease the tension he saw in her tired eyes than out of any happy feelings of his own.

Jennifer couldn't help but smile back. "Well, that's never not important. But the all-important question this time is whether you came into contact with any infected people." She snapped her gloves in place and took a hold of his right arm by the elbow. "I see we've learned to expedite the matter."

Lorne's grin turned sheepish and his cheeks became tinged with the faintest pink. "No offense Doc. I love our little moments together, but my arm feels differently and its disdain for the infirmary is starting to influence me too."

"All done." Jennifer released her hold on him and slapped a band-aid over the small puncture wound.

"Great. Thanks." Lorne quickly jumped off the bed and headed straight for the doorway. He turned the corner towards the Briefing room, changed his mind, and popped his head back into the infirmary. "Hey Jenn?"

Jennifer's head popped up from where she was quickly surveying and injured marine's medical chart. A few strands of honey blonde hair blew across her eyes and she impatiently pushed them away before focusing on Lorne's disembodied head.

"Get some sleep. You look like you could some," he added gently. He grinned once more before pulling his head back into the corridor and disappearing from view.

Jennifer exhaled slowly. Sleep. Now there was a thought. Too bad sleep was one of those things she'd learned to live without if she intended on getting anything done. The expedition members had all learned to live with a lot less sleep.

Jennifer shuddered as a thought popped unbidden into her head. They were all getting a lot less sleep than they needed. All of them save for one. And he was why she couldn't rest just yet. She had a promise to keep first.

* * *

M1K-439, or Planet Waterfall as it had been so aptly named, was deceptively beautiful. The continents, of which there were two, were studded with massive crystalline rock formations, dotted with hundreds of lakes, and lined with rivers filled with clear blue water. The forest carpeting the rest of the land was a riot of colour; the trees were a vivid emerald green, the flowers spanned every colour of the rainbow, and the animals came in every imaginable shade, shape, and size.

Ronon Dex had spent exactly five days, thirteen hours, and seven minutes on this planet while on the run from the Wraith. During the first hour, he'd been bitten and nibbled on by more insects than he had the nerve to recall. He'd spent that first night awake up in a tree after finding out the hard way that not every beast reacted similarly to his gun. By the third day, he'd thought he'd finally caught a break when the Wraith sent to kill him had been attacked and subsequently eaten by a rather large snake-like reptile. On day five, he'd decided that the paradise was in fact a hell, and that he'd rather take his chances with the Wraith when he discovered that the cave he'd assigned as his sleeping quarters had already been claimed by an understandably furious female _something_ and her numerous cubs. It had then taken him seven minutes to input a new address into the DHD due to a very serious, and very bothersome, rash that had developed in a very uncomfortable place.

So, needless to stay, Ronon was rather glad they were enjoying the view from the Jumper and proceeding quickly through the upper atmosphere and into the vacuum of space.

"No flesh-eating fish swimming up here," Ronon muttered to himself.

"You say something?" John inquired from the pilot's seat. He really could just turn around to join the conversation. The Ancients had programmed these things so well they could almost fly themselves under normal conditions, and they did still have several hours to go before they reached the site of the distress beacon. Unfortunately, normal conditions could turn abnormal in the blink of an eye in this galaxy, faster where his team was concerned, and John wasn't willing to add to the odds already stacked against them.

"This was one of the planets I visited when the Wraith had me on the run."

Teyla angled her head to look over at him. Ronon rarely spoke of the seven years he'd spent running at the whim of the Wraith. She wondered why he'd spoken up now, but knew better than to question him about it. So she listened.

"Oh yeah?" John snuck a quick glance back at the Satedan. He didn't look tense or angry or even uncomfortable. His arms were loosely crossed and he had his legs spread out in the aisle between his and Teyla's seats. "Those waves by the eastern continent looked pretty decent. Bet we could do some serious surfing once we get this beacon thing taken care off."

"You do that," Ronon winked at Teyla as a smirk played across his lips. "The waves I remember were definitely…big." Teyla raised her eyebrows at this. Ronon merely graced her with a wider smirk.

"If you want to get swallowed by the equally large flora and fauna of the planet, then go right ahead, Sheppard," Rodney replied dryly. His head bent over his tablet, fingers furiously typing away something only he could decipher. "You'd be eaten the moment you stepped off the Jumper."

"What-"

Rodney sighed and scowled. He furrowed his brow as something popped up on the display that he disagreed with and pressed his finger harder on the screen than was entirely necessary. "It helps to read the Ancient database before you decide to go swim with the fishies." Rodney turned his head towards John and smirked, "It helps to know that the fishies you'd be dealing with are as big, if not bigger, than you are."

"I know that, Rodney," John countered with a shrugg, "And I would have."

He was met with silence from his teammates at that statement. He shot a look over at Rodney and was met with an incredulous stare. He turned back to the infinitely more pleasant view out the Jumper's window. "Fine." John frowned at the windshield and thought for a second. Of course he would have checked, he decided.

The four lapsed into silence once more, Rodney's constant and steady tapping the only sound permeating the quiet. It was making John uneasy.

"So Teyla," he redirected, deciding a new topic of conversation was in order, "How's Junior doing?"

Her head snapped up from where she'd been idly gazing at the zipper of her tac vest. Her eyes instantly softened at the mention of her son and the corners of her mouth rose unbidden to form a small smile.

"I will never understand this Earth custom to bestow upon children such nicknames. Are most parents not satisfied with the names they have chosen for their children?" She inquired with quirked lips and a sparkle in her eye. She truly did not mind John's tendency to refer to Tagan by that name. She took it as a sign of his acceptance. She'd come to terms with the fact that his personal opinion was important to her.

"Not unsatisfied, per say. Simply coming to the slow realization that they've impressed upon their children certain expectations from a very early age-"

"Oh yes," Rodney snarked, "I'm sure your parents thought on the day you were born that you'd grow up to become a priest."

Ronon snorted behind John and cleared his throat loudly when John turned around to glare. John's face suddenly brightened and he slowly swiveled to face Rodney, a wicked grin taking over his face. Rodney, for his part, immediately wished the words back the moment they'd been spoken.

"Well Meredith," John spoke slowly, his eyes sparkling as he watched Rodney pause and look up towards the ceiling, "We certainly know what your parents were thinking."

"I'll have you know," Rodney countered, his face turning aloof and his voice professorial, "that Meredith means, 'lord of the sea.'"

Little snorts of laughter could be heard from behind as Ronon's attempts to smother them failed. Teyla's shoulders were shaking, but she remained silent.

John never got the chance to respond before the Jumper's scanner bleeped to life and images began to pop up on the window in front of him.

Rodney's eyes widened as he quickly scanned the data and went back to furiously tapping away at his tablet.

"That doesn't make any sense. There's no way I could have missed that. There's no way the scanners back on Atlantis could have missed something like this." Rodney's voice was rising with every word, his eyes continued to widen, and his fingers moved ever faster on the screen.

Ronon uncrossed his arms, tucked his legs back in near his chair, and leaned forward. Teyla did the same, a worried frown creasing her brow.

"Rodney," John drew out the word in warning.

"Just wait," Rodney snapped, bringing his head up to stare out the windshield and squinting hard before he spoke again, "Do you see that little sphere?" He pressed some buttons on the Jumper's dash and managed to magnify an image of the space in front of them. He pointed to the new display, "Right there. That's not supposed to be there."

"Rodney," John said sharply this time. This mission was quickly morphing from normal recon into typical "Sheppard's team" material.

"What I mean is, it didn't show up on the deep-space scanner on Atlantis. It didn't show up on any of the scans I ran afterwards, and it's only popping up now because it's within our line of site."

"What is it, McKay?" Ronon demanded.

"It's the beacon."

John turned his head sharply at that and raised his eyebrows.

"Or rather, it's where the beacon is coming from," Rodney amended.

"If you draw this out any longer McKay, I'll hit you," Ronon threatened. He didn't like being kept in the dark and he was getting a bad feeling about this now.

Rodney was still awestruck at the sight before him and the significance of it. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and replied wondrously, "It's a planet. The Ancients managed to hide a whole planet."

* * *

A/N: Reviews are love, people. Reviews are love.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, don't own SGA, yada yada

Thanks to **KindlyKeller **for all her amazing beta'ing skills.

* * *

Chapter 3

"What in the sphincter of hell are you doing to my ship, boy?" A voice bellowed from just outside the ship's control room. That particular voice belonged to the ship's captain. Not a happy man at the best of times, he was a downright furious son of a bitch now that his ship was lurching about in space as if drunk on its own fuel, it's engines coughing and wheezing, sounding for all the world like they were ready to die within the next ten seconds, and the possibility of sanctuary was so far away he doubted it'd ever existed for his crew or this galaxy.

"I leave you to pilot this steaming hunk of Wraith shit for a few minutes so I might take care of a man's business and I come back to find you've destroyed my ship!" The captain shouted those last few words directly in the boy's ear, but the boy knew better than to flinch or to show his fear. Weakness was not tolerated on Captain Varius' ship, just as weakness was not tolerated in life. Those who showed fear, allowed it to incapacitate them and slow their actions, died or - worse - were captured by the Wraith.

The boy glanced up, staring into the face of his worst nightmare and greatest salvation, the man who'd raised him when his own mother had discarded him like so much waste. He looked up into those blood-shot eyes that hadn't seen the right side of a bed in too many weeks to count. They were drilling holes into his skull now, the brown of his irises almost completely obscured by red veins, sagging lids, and folds of skin. The boy's own eyes were involuntarily drawn to the jagged, angry scar that ran from Varius' right temple, cut savagely across his cheek, and continued down his throat to disappear under the stained folds of his shirt. Varius never spoke of that day, the day he'd stood up to fear, and lost everything.

"We must have suffered more damage than we'd thought when the Wraith ambushed us." The ship shuddered violently and Varius grabbed onto the back of the pilot's seat to steady himself. His scowl deepened as another alarm blared to life.

"You want to tell me what else just went wrong on this blasted ship?" Varius demanded, his face now red with fury. Damn it all, he thought. It might just be easier to settle back and die now. Just let this heap of junk take them into the next plane. It would mean no more running, no more scavenging, no more fighting for a life the Wraith were determined to suck out from the bowels of his chest. Damn it all, he thought again, furious with himself. He wasn't that man.

"The engines are overheating!" The boy was scared now. Fear and terror evident in his wide, blue eyes, the pallor of his skin, the slight tremble in his chin, and the hitch in his voice as he continued, "The cooling system is down, the fans stopped working days ago," he turned his gaze up at the man who'd given everyone on this ship a second chance at life. "We keep going and it'll-"

"No," Varius bellowed, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his neck and hauling him to his feet. "You learned a trade, didn't you, boy?" When he got no answer and those pale blue eyes just continued to stare madly into his own, he shook the boy, once, twice, and a third time more violently 'till he saw awareness begin to creep back in.

"Yes, sir. I did." He was terrified and couldn't keep it out of his voice but he tried his damnedest to lock his knees and stop them shaking. The whine from the sirens grew shriller and the ship's rocking and shuddering more violent.

Varius narrowed his eyes until they were nothing more than red slits. He drew the boy in to his chest and pressed his bulbous nose against the boy's skinny one. He spoke softly, but savagely, "Then you ply your trade. I don't much care how you do it. Spit on the engine, piss on it if you have to, but you get that engine cool and working 'till I decide it's time for us to land."

He pushed the boy away and watched silently as he stumbled, nearly landing head first on the floor of the control room when the ship pitched violently forward. He silently approved when the boy caught himself and straightened, his tall, reed-thin body nearly too tall for the small space.

"This ship doesn't crash, Marcus. Now go."

Varius turned around and set himself gracelessly down into the pilot's seat and grabbed the controls with both hands. He didn't have to look behind him to know the boy was long gone, and he'd bet next week's rations that the engines started behaving within a quarter hour.

He gripped the control wheel tighter and gritted his teeth as the ship shook once more, threatening to end their journey right there, right then. The middle-of-nowhere-space as their grave bed, this patched together hunk of metal their grave marker. He didn't much mind that sort of end for himself, but he'd made promises he'd intended to keep. They may have been promises that weren't his to make but he'd never been one to be deterred by pointless semantics. He said what needed to be said to get the job done.

"Hard on the boy," an old voice wheezed behind him.

Varius couldn't afford the luxury of taking his eyes off the controls in front of him. He grunted in acknowledgement before wrenching the wheel harshly to the left, straightening the ship out of its violent list. The ship continued to lurch and shudder, the engines' alarm still drilling into his head, but he could swear they didn't sound as bad now as they had a minute ago.

"Life's a bitch, old man. I'd do him no favours by coddling him. The Wraith sure as hell don't coddle and coo right before they suck the life from your chest."

Valius swore long, loud, and elaborately when more lights lit up on the control panel in front him. What had started as a minor dent in the hull had turned into a tear and his ship was venting atmosphere. "Come on, you bastards. Fix it." His right hand lifted off the wheel to hover over the comm. system before he remembered that it hadn't worked since he'd patched in parts from Rial's ship. "Shit. Shit."

Both hands on the wheel now, Varius turned angry eyes on the man leaning heavily against the co-pilot's chair. The older man's cane lay discarded on the floor and both withered hands, the right one missing two fingers, the left one missing another, gripped onto either side of the chair. He had a single leg to balance on, the other lost long ago to a war both men had given up any hope of winning. All that was left was survival.

"You're running in the wrong direction," was all the old man said. His eyes never left the view before him – open, empty space. It would just as soon kill you as give you a home. To him, it was simply the only place left. He'd lost whatever had counted for home long ago, back when such things mattered, back when there had been more to life than fighting and running and hoping for one more day, one more battle, one more chance to kill them all. He'd given up that hope the day he'd lost his leg and his life.

Once, he'd been amongst the best fighter's the humans had against the Wraith. He'd taken out hundreds of the bastards after they'd stolen his planet and his home. Now he was a crippled old man in body and fifty years younger at heart. All he had left was this ship and this crew and the blind determination to make Valius see reason.

"Do not start this with me again. I've made my decision."

"Yes. One made with hate and anger and resentment in your heart. You sentence us all to death."

"That is my right as captain of this ship," Valius bellowed, springing from his seat. All his efforts at piloting were in vain anyway. If his actions and decisions as captain were to be questioned, he'd be staring the would-be mutineer in the face, on his feet, and ready to take him down. "And if you don't see fit to die under my command, Darius, then you can see fit to leave."

Darius would not give this up. Not this time. It probably wouldn't make a difference, not this late, but he would not die a coward and not having at least tried, "Atlantis-"

"Brought this down on our heads," Valius shouted, hands balled into fists at his sides. His furious voice broke through the sirens and the alarms foretelling their imminent death, "You would have me turn to – no - beg for help from the ones who sentenced this galaxy and its people to die at the hands of the Wraith?"

"They offer protection."

"They offer us nothing," Valius roared. His eyes blazed, alight with a fire born of a deep-seeded hatred for those who'd awakened the Wraith, those responsible for the merciless slaughter of millions. "They sit in their shielded city and fly about in their shiny ships," he spat out each word as one would poison.

He took two slow, measured steps and stopped to tower over the man he'd once called his friend. Darius had been great once; they'd fought side by side in the war. But now, he was a tired, feeble man with stooped shoulders, thinning gray hair, and a broken soul. The man he'd once known would have never suggested what was being spoken now. Another thing to add to a long list of losses those miserable bastards were responsible for, he thought.

"We suffer and we run and we die. We watched our children vanish before our eyes. Known the cruel fate that awaited them," The ship bucked again beneath their feet, its shudders growing ever more violent, its sirens blaring ever louder, but Valius paid them no heed. "And you want us to run into the arms of those that rained destruction upon us?" His voice reduced itself to a whisper. Their faces so close together now, Darius could trace the veins in Valius' eyes and see the puckered skin of his scar. His dim gray eyes met forceful brown, and held.

"Sir."

Valius broke the stare and shifted, ready to tell the boy to get back to the engine room. He could still hear the damn things sputtering; the heat sensors were still ringing inside his head, and in his control room. But Marcus wasn't looking at him with that wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. He was staring out the control room's window.

Both men turned and followed Marcus' stare and looked upon their salvation.

Valius jumped when the ship bucked again and tumbled him into the pilot's seat, both hands reflexively gripping the wheel again.

"Can you set her down?" Darius inquired softly.

"Shut up, old man." Valius gritted his teeth as the shudders of his ship in its dieing throws threatened to rip the hull apart.

"I wouldn't want to die before you got the chance to kill me." Darius had managed to seat himself in the co-pilot's chair, a twisted parody of what had once been.

"Not today, old man. Not today."

* * *

A/N: Reviews are love, people.


	5. Chapter 4

Thanks again to **KindlyKeller** for awesomely beta'ing what turned out to be a ridiculously long chapter. The next one might be shorter.

Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter 4

Dr. Jennifer Keller had long ago settled herself cross-legged on the floor in front of Dr. Carson Beckett's stasis chamber. Inspiration, she thought to herself. Maybe his knowledge of zenobiology and genetics would diffuse through the glass separating them and permeate her brain. She needed all the help she could get at this point.

Her studies of the protein and enzyme structure of the small quantity of Michael's serum they'd managed to extract from Carson's blood samples had yielded very few revelations. Her attempts to reverse engineer said serum had yielded even fewer results. She was working on the assumption that everything she needed to know was encoded in those minute samples. If she studied the structure long enough, hard enough, with enough determination, and a little bit of luck, she'd discover a way to make it work. And yet, there existed the possibility that the samples they'd retrieved had been simply too old and deteriorated, and that she was working with an incomplete model.

That evil, depressing little thought managed to work it's way into the forefront of her thoughts every so often. It was usually when yet another test had failed and she was forced to begin again, forced to reanalyze the protein structure, restudy the configuration, and attempt once more to recreate the cure that would save Carson's life. She'd performed countless trials, run countless tests, and none of them had produced an even remotely workable serum. For the most part, she'd learnt to push aside the dread and lock it away in the tiny part of her brain used to house other unpleasant thoughts, most of them having to do with the increasingly vast number of ways she could end up dead in the Pegasus galaxy. Dead. Carson.

Jennifer felt the all too familiar bubble of hysteria well up in the pit of her stomach again. It always started as tiny flutter, the softest of sensations, but as her palms grew increasingly sweaty and her heartbeat began to quicken, the feeling would start to spread. It moved up into her chest next, tightening like bands around her ribcage, squeezing her lungs and her heart until each breath came out short and fast.

As a doctor, she recognized the symptoms of a panic attack. She tried to even out her breathing. Breath in slow. Breathe out slow. She rubbed her sweaty palms along the material covering her thighs and concentrated on that feeling, on her breathing, on keeping her heart from leaping out of her chest, and banishing the sickening sensation that threatened to undo her not for the first time.

Several minutes passed, but to Jennifer it felt like she'd spent hours trying to get her body back under control. She understood the physiological processes, the chemical reactions going on inside of her body to produce these physical manifestations. She understood that certain mental states triggered certain physiological responses within the body and that this was simply another example of that. But regardless of everything she knew this still embarrassed her. She'd told no one. Who was there to tell? Who could she turn to and say, "I know Carson's dieing, but at this rate, he'll outlive us all because he's frozen and I'll never recreate the serum necessary to keep him alive once he's been unfrozen."

"Yes you will."

Jennifer's head snapped up, her eyes going wide, the unexpected reply to her accidentally spoken statement startling her out of her thoughts. She quickly rose to her feet, smoothing out her uniform while simultaneously turning towards her surprising visitor.

"Rodney?" Jennifer glanced down at her watch and was surprised to find that she'd spent hours longer with Carson than she'd intended. It was nearing three in the morning, her shift started at six, and she'd yet to catch any sleep. "What are you doing here?"

"You have a new patient," Rodney explained. His hands were gathered in front of his body and his eyes roamed the room, glancing at Carson's stasis pod for a split second before settling on hers. "Woolsey wants a full physical examination of some man Lorne brought back from M2R-441. Won't let him out of quarantine otherwise."

"And you've become Woolsey's errand boy?"

"What?" Rodney dropped his hands and took a step forward. "No. I was just there and you'd left your radio and I know that this-" He suddenly realized what he was implying and his eyes grew wide. "What I meant to say is one of the nurses said you come here sometimes and it was on the way to my lab, so-"

"Rodney," Jennifer interrupted what was threatening to become a full-fledged rambling rant, "It's fine. I was just-" What was she doing exactly? At first she'd started coming here as a means for inspiration, for some new perspective, and it had worked for a time. She'd leave with a new idea or a different take on an old one. Now she came to remind herself of the man she continued to fail, of the promise she wasn't capable of keeping. "I was just clearing my head."

His rambling interrupted, Rodney focused his gaze intently on Jennifer's face. Her skin was pale and pulled tight over the bones of her face. She hadn't had a decent night's rest in weeks and it showed in the shadows under eyes and the red where there should have been only white.

"Doubts?" Rodney inquired softly.

Jennifer shot a quick glance over her shoulder towards Carson's pod, sighing slowly. "Always," she whispered, her eyes on the ceiling, on the floor, anywhere but on Rodney's face. He'd heard her accidental confession, found her sitting on the floor in front of Carson's stasis pod.

"You'll get it."

Her dark eyes shot up to gaze intently into his blue ones, surprise flickering over her face at his unexpected faith in her abilities. Dr. Rodney McKay, genius though he may have been, was not an optimistic person. He was certain of his own intelligence and his own abilities, but beyond that, Rodney didn't possess much appreciation for anyone else's. Needless to say, his show of support stunned her enough to make her entertain the possibility that perhaps she had simply missed a crucial detail.

Rodney's unease at her silent scrutiny was becoming increasingly obvious; his hands were starting to fidget where he had them clasped in front of him, his expression had morphed from concern to panic, and he was becoming increasingly unsure where to rest his gaze. He wasn't quite sure why he'd volunteered to find the rogue doctor, why he hadn't simply listened to the nurse when she said she'd be happy to go. He was probably busy getting the science teams together, she'd said. She'd been right, but he had insisted nonetheless. He normally wasn't one to put much stock in psychology, or any science without a firm basis in quantifiable fact, but he'd gotten the feeling that he understood to an extent what was running through her head. Rodney figured he knew better than most what it felt like to let people down.

Jennifer smiled ruefully and shook off the last of the dust clinging to her uniform. She silently thanked Rodney for his intrusion and gestured towards the hallway behind him with her right hand.

"So, new patient you said? From off-world?" Jennifer questioned as she started towards the doors and out of the Stasis Room.

Rodney fell into step beside her before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his pants. This was a line of conversation he happened to be infinitely more comfortable with. "Hmm. Yes. His village was hit hard by the Wraith and many of his people have succumbed to famine and disease." Rodney paused for a second before continuing, his tone slightly incredulous, "He wants to ask for our help." He glanced over at Jennifer and saw the shadows fall over her face once more. He had to keep reminding himself that she was still relatively new to all of this – Pegasus, Atlantis, the Wraith, and death tolls in the thousands. She still took everything so personally, still believed they could save everyone.

"As much as we rejoice at the infighting amongst the Wraith, Rodney, there are still too many of them and they all still have to feed," she replied angrily. She quickened her pace when she caught sight of the transporter at the end of the hall, each footfall reverberating off the walls of the empty corridor, her conviction returning with every step and every maddening thought. Rodney widened his pace to keep up with her. "We have a responsibility to the people of this galaxy. Not only because we woke the Wraith. Not only because we enabled the Replicators to wipe out thousands of people-" Rodney grimaced at the poke to a wound all too fresh. "But because we simply have the resources and the means to distribute them."

They reached the transporter just as she had finished speaking. Jennifer stalked inside and whipped around to face Rodney once more, her eyes blazing and cheeks flushed a rosy pink. "I'll fight Woolsey on this one if I have to. The IOA and its protocols and priorities can go stuff themselves." With those final words, she spun back around and stabbed with her finger at the control panel. The doors slid shut on a very bemused astrophysicist. A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he ducked his head and let out a tiny chuckle.

The doors opened once more and Rodney stepped into a now empty transporter. He gently tapped at the control panel, watched the doors slide shut, and was instantaneously transported to the corridor just outside his labs. The doors opened and his eyes and ears were bombarded with stimuli. There were people walking, practically running, in and out of every lab, scurrying everywhere. Excited, eager voices bounced off the walls. Equipment, in varying states of readiness, was gathered in every available spot - stacked against walls, strewn over lab tables. Rodney's smile quickly reverted into his more usual scowl as he tripped over a half-packed duffel bag and nearly dove headfirst into the adjacent wall.

"Has the completely foreign prospect of planetary exploration reduced everyone here to mindless grad students?" Rodney yelled. Half of his staff stopped in their tracks. The other half had been around longer and new enough to make themselves scarce.

"There you are, Rodney!" Dr. Radek Zelenka gingerly stepped over a subterranean scanner as he made his way towards Rodney. Noticing the still frozen scientists, Zelenka waved his hands around and told them all to get back to work. "We are supposed to be preparing to examine a planet the Ancients managed to hide for possibly tens of thousands of years." He quickly settled a teetering tripod securely against a wall and stepped around another duffel bag. "One they went to all the trouble of wiping completely from the database." Zelenka stepped in front of the bigger, scowling man, pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, and peered at Rodney over the tops of them. "Where were you?" Zelenka inquired, his forehead furrowing as he tried to imagine something Rodney would consider a higher priority.

Rodney's scowl deepened. He pushed Radek aside and continued walking, stumbling, towards his lab. "I leave you in charge for five minutes-"

"An hour."

"Five minutes, Radek," Rodney continued through gritted teeth, "Suddenly my staff is composed of poorly trained monkeys-" Radek rolled his eyes as he followed Rodney back to his lab. "And my labs are their playground!"

Rodney settled in at his customary desk and powered up his PC, then swiveled around on his stool to face Radek. "I'm going to need you to stay on Atlantis, Radek."

Radek's eyes grew wide and his eyebrows shot up to somewhere near his receding hairline. He began to sputter in protest, but Rodney waved him off impatiently and turned back to his computer.

"This has nothing to do to with-" Rodney waved his hands around above his head to indicate the general insanity going on around them. "This. I need someone here to work on the signal from that beacon. I want to know what else the Ancients are hiding."

"But-" Radek protested weakly.

"You'll get many more chances to see the planet," Rodney replied, looking over his shoulder at Radek and frowning slightly. "You don't even like going off-world." He turned back to his work and began furiously tapping away at the keyboard, the conversation over.

Radek sighed, recognizing the futility of arguing the point. He shot a glare at Rodney's back and stalked off, muttering angrily in Czech.

* * *

"He's clean," Jennifer declared, looking up from the blood work reports and MRI scans at Woolsey and Sheppard. "Well, as clean as someone living in a hut, exposed to the elements, and susceptible to every bacteria, virus, and parasite known to man can be," she amended before looking down through the glass at the solitary figure sitting stiffly in one of two armchairs facing each other in the isolation room below.

"Good. Thank you Doctor," Woolsey replied, motioning for Sheppard to follow him and proceeding towards the door leading down to where their visitor waited.

Security had been increased following the events of the past year. Now every visitor from off-world had to be processed – scanned for implants, tested for disease – before they were questioned or permitted to speak their case. They couldn't risk any more security breaches, not with Michael still unaccounted for and roaming the galaxy. It certainly took more time and effort, but the IOA had deemed it necessary and Sheppard had reluctantly agreed with their verdict.

The two men stood wordlessly side-by-side as they waited for the door to the isolation room to slide open. Their visitor immediately shot to his feet as they entered, but his previously eager expression was now one of puzzlement.

"I was told I would be meeting with Dr. Weir." The man looked genuinely confused as he glanced between Woolsey and Sheppard. "Neither of you are Dr. Weir." He took in Woolsey's cool expression and Sheppard's unreadable gaze and a small sliver of fear wormed its way into his gut. "Did something happen to her?"

Sheppard took a slow step forward, saw fear flicker in the man's eyes before it was savagely tamped down. He raised his hands non-threateningly and gestured for the visitor to retake his seat. The man did, slowly, and just as stiffly as he had before. His eyes were wary now and shot rapidly back and forth between the two men standing in front of him.

Sheppard set himself down on the arm of the opposite chair and continued to study the man across from him.

"What do you know of Elizabeth Weir, Lian?" Woolsey's voice broke the silence and speared through the tension building in the room. He focused on the skinny figure of the man, who looked for all the world like a caged animal with his wide eyes and trembling frame. Scared animals were often the most dangerous, Woolsey knew. He tried his best to put their visitor at ease. "You're not in any trouble, Lian. We just want to know when you think you saw Dr. Weir."

Lian forced his muscles to relax, easing some of the tension that had settled between his shoulder blades. Refusing to look at the intense, hazel stare of the dark-haired man, he focused his eyes on the kinder-looking bald man still standing.

"A couple years ago, your people came to my planet looking to trade for food. Many in my village had just been culled." Lian looked down at his hands as the terror of that night rushed up and seized his heart.

"My wife and children were among them. We could only offer very little to your people," he explained, looking back up and catching the dark eyes of Col. Sheppard. "You were there, Dr. Weir as well. Instead of turning back and leaving those of who had survived the Wraith to die, you helped us to rebuild. Gifted us with supplies, enough food to keep us alive until we could harvest again."

Lian's eyes glazed as he remembered the hard days and nights that had followed, his grief at losing his family, the hope that the expedition's kindness had kindled within his people. "We never forgot your generousity and we would never intend to abuse it. But-"

Here he stopped. He still had a measure of pride that no culling or famine or threat of death could ever strip away. He looked at both men with sad, tired eyes, silently begging them to understand that this was not a choice he had made lightly, that, were it only up to him, he would rather fight alone than abuse the kindness of friends.

"My people are dieing. The Wraith are relentless, tireless, and there are so many of them. They attack in endless swarms. We have been reduced to such a small number, forced to live in nothing more than tents, eating whatever we can scavenge from the forests, our children and elders succumbing to disease. Dr. Weir promised us help, should we need it. She told me to come here when all hope ran out." Lian stood, his hands clasped tightly in front him, his eyes pleading, "We no longer have hope. We need your help."

"We'll do what we can to help, Lian. That was never at question," John replied quietly, "But you should know, Dr. Weir has been presumed dead for over a year now."

Lian's eyes went wide and he began shaking his head rapidly.

"No,no,no. That is not possible!"

John sighed at the shared sentiment. How many times had he said the exact same thing? "But true. I'm sorry."

Lian took a few small steps forward. Something was wrong. That sliver of fear was beginning to gnaw at his gut again. Uneasiness swept into his heart and scattered his mind.

"No, no. You do not understand. Eight months ago, my people were hit hard by an illness. So many of us were sick. I was sick. We were on the verge of being wiped out entirely because there were hardly any of us well enough to gather food or nurse those ailing back to health." Something was very, very wrong. Lian could feel it. Sheppard had returned to staring intensely, his muscles tensed, his whole body on alert now. Woolsey's forehead was etched with deep lines of worry, his hands grasping tightly onto his tablet. "But a group of strangers came to our aid. They came with food, clothing, blankets, medicine. We would not have survived without their help."

"What does that have to do with Dr. Weir?" Woolsey asked hesitantly, afraid he already knew the answer.

"She led those who had come to our aid."

Silence filled the room, the tension palpable. John sat unmoving on his chair, deathly still, eerily quiet. His mind was blank, completely and utterly empty as he tried and failed to process this information. Then it suddenly shifted into overdrive and he shot up like a rocket and stood face-to-face with the man who might have just changed everything.

"You mean you saw a women claiming to be Dr. Weir," John whispered softly, savagely, daring Lian to deny him.

"N-n-n-n-o," Lian muttered, terror paralyzing him. He couldn't move, couldn't back up and away from the eyes drilling holes into his own, from the maddening glare. "It is not easy to forget one who has saved your life not once, but twice. It was Dr. Weir." He mustered up what little courage he had left and stared right back into John's hazel eyes. "I swear it on the Ancestors."

"Col. Sheppard," Woolsey warned.

John slowly backed away from Lian, his eyes never leaving the other man's face.

The Colonel's mind was a riot of emotion. Alive. Elizabeth was still alive. He had to shake his head and remind himself that there was no way. She couldn't be alive. She had been with the Asurans when they'd all been destroyed and had been destroyed along with them. Yet, even logic couldn't defeat the tiny ball of hope beginning to unfurl within him. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth against the possibility, allowing the fury rise up, and squash any growing note of optimism. Furious he turned to Woolsey and met his shell-shocked stare.

Static suddenly came to life over their radios, pulling both men out of pipe dreams. "Mr.Woolsey, come in."

Woolsey quickly shook off the lingering vestiges of awe and touched his fingers to his radio. "Woolsey here," he whispered. Why was he whispering? He cleared his throat and repeated his reply, his voice louder, clearer.

"The Deadalus is in orbit and Col. Caldwell is requesting permission to beam down."

"Permission granted. Radio Dr. McKay, Teyla, and Ronon. Have Caldwell meet us in the Conference Room."

"Will do, sir."

Woolsey looked back at a pale-faced Lian. The man had stumbled back and now lay collapsed in his chair, utterly exhausted and still terrified. He turned again to a stone-faced John Sheppard, "Caldwell and the Deadalus are waiting. I'll have another team investigate this situation. Right now, _your_ team has a job to do Colonel. Your mind needs to be on that job."

Sheppard's shoulders stiffened at the implied accusation and he slowly turned away from Liam. He stalked over to Woolsey and glared at the man. "Don't presume to tell me how to do my job." His voice was barely above a whisper, yet seething with anger. "You just make sure you do yours." That said, he marched to the doors leading out and disappeared around the corner.

Woolsey looked up towards the observation glass, relieved to see Keller still there.

"Dr. Keller?" Woolsey waited for a response and when one wasn't forthcoming, he repeated himself.

"Yes?" Came the soft reply.

"I trust you'll take care of Lian from here."

"Right. Of course."

Woolsey allowed himself a forced smile and nod of his head in Lian's direction then proceeded to follow Sheppard out of the isolation room. Only once he saw the doors had slid shut behind him, and that there was no one around to see him, did he allow himself to sag back against the wall. He let his head fall backwards, his eyes looking up at the ceiling before squeezing them shut. It looked like this was it, the end of the 'easy' part of being Commander of Atlantis. He wanted to relish this moment. This last moment of relative calm before what he feared to be an earth-shattering storm. But he had a job to do, and he had to do it well. Lives depended on his choices now, his mistakes, his triumphs. They had a planet the Ancients had tried their hardest to hide to explore, and the possible return of Dr. Elizabeth Weir, who could turn out to be either infected with harmless nanites or to be a Replicator herself.

Woolsey shakily pushed himself away from the support of the wall and stood on his own two feet. He slowly placed one foot in front of the other, then later with more assurance. He squared his shoulders and schooled his facial features into an imitation of calm collectedness. He marched down the corridor leading to the briefing room, his confidence increasing with every step. He walked towards uncertainty with unfaltering steps and unwavering resolve. He would see this through. They would see this through, he corrected. How, still remained to be seen.

* * *

I see you reading people. Remember, reviews are love.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: Again disclaiming ownership of the material. I own nothing save the characters you don't recognize. And the plot.

Sorry for the wait, but it couldn't be helped. My muse isn't always cooperative.

This chapter has been marvelously beta'ed by **Kindly Keller. **Only grammer folks, the chapter is still the same.

* * *

Lyria shot up from her bed, her body bathed in cold sweat, legs tangled in the thin linen sheets of high summer. Panting, desperate to fill her lungs with precious air, she fought to shake off the terror brutally clawing at her stomach. She clutched both of her violently shaking hands to her chest and pressed them hard against her furiously beating heart. Her body trembled and shivered, her skin skin to gooseflesh. She was freezing inside despite the oppressive heat and the humid air that had settled in her room.

With trembling fingers, Lyria untangled the mass of sheets imprisoning her legs and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them tightly and clung as she slowly rocked herself to a state of relative calm. She rested her clammy forehead on her knees, forcing each breath to steady and slow with a determination born of practice and necessity.

The nightmare, like all those before it, still played with vivid clarity in her mind's eye. A blinding light in a dark sky followed by deafening thunder, the earth shaking, strangers shouting and pointing strange weapons in the village circle, followed by screaming and crying, blood everywhere. The village littered with the bodies of people she loved, bathed in blood, the shrieks of pain and horror endless.

Lyria sucked in another shaky breath and expelled it on an escaped sob.

"No, no, no," whispering soft denials, she squeezed her eyes shut, held on tighter, rocked harder, and pushed at the screams in her head, trying in vain to silence the voices echoing in her mind. When they refused to cease, Lyria opened her eyes and desperately focused her gaze on the moonlight streaming in through the open window. Clear, white light bathed her room and washed over the clothing she'd left scattered on the floor, illuminating the sheets of parchment she'd stacked neatly on the chair at the foot of her bed. She could make out every etched line on the intricate clay statue of the Moon Goddesses she'd placed on top of the stack lest a stray wind scatter the pages. Both moons were full tonight. The land was brighter on this night than on any other in half a cycle – an omen. A portent of change.

"Change and difference. New life and fresh death," a traitorous little voice whispered in the back of her head. Lyria shook it away and concentrated on the statue, on the intertwining bodies of the two sisters most revered of all the Sen'dae for their beauty and wisdom.

Nearly an hour later, she was calmer. The memories of her nightmare were slowly fading from her mind. Lyria finally relaxed her hold on her body. Her muscles protested at the sudden movements after being clenched for so long, but she insisted on placing both feet on the floor. Pushing off from the bed, she stood and stretched her arms to the ceiling, pulling corded muscles straight, aligning her spine after sitting slouched for so long. It would be impossible for her to fall back asleep now. She'd settle for reading some of the historical records Neilan had loaned her this morning. Chores and her brothers had kept her occupied all day long, so she hadn't had a chance to get started on them, but there was nothing to stop her now.

She shuffled over to the foot of her bed and reached down to remove the idol from atop the stack. She turned to place it on her windowsill, a symbol of protection, and froze with her arm outstretched as a flash of light pierced the night sky and a thundering roar filled the air. Her heart seized and stuttered as images from the countless nightmares she'd endured over the past months flashed before her eyes. She staggered on unsteady legs, grasped the edges of the window with numb fingers, and followed the light with wide eyes as it raced across the night sky and disappeared over the top of her home. The roar grew louder and she fought the urge to cover her ears and curl up in a corner. She fought the urge to hide.

Minutes passed before she realized her mother was shouting her name. Lyria stumbled to the door, fumbled with the handle before yanking it open, and running to the main room of the house. She found her father already dressed, his face drawn and stretched tight with worry. He was shoving his feet into leather boots while her mother looked on, fear evidnet in her eyes and the white-knuckled grip she had on the front of her robe. Three of her brothers sat huddled on the mat at the hearth while the eldest attempted to light a fire with shaking hands, his thin frame jumping with every clap of sound, every ground-shaking boom.

She walked to him on steady legs, gently removing the logs from his shuddering grasp with firm hands. The continual roar, her mother's hitching breaths, her father's soft assurances - all of it - faded into the background as she went through the motions of lighting the fire. Her mind slowed; she finally stopped thinking.

The ground quivered and quaked, shook and shuddered. The air suddenly filled with thundering roars, blares, and blasts. Her mother lurched into her father's arms, crying out. Lyria grabbed onto the top of the hearth for balance and stared with unseeing eyes at her brothers huddled on the floor, hanging onto each other fiercely. Her mother prayed, her father murmured, her brothers wept. Lyria felt nothing.

Then all was still. All was silent.

* * *

"Drink your broth. You need to eat."

Darius grimaced at the orders delivered by a disembodied voice. He knew that voice. Had gotten used to hearing its insistent tone over the last ten days. It reminded him to eat, to sleep, to walk and loosen stiff, tired muscles. That voice had pulled him out of painful nightmares and lured him away from the cold, dark precipice of death. Its soft hands had gently, but effectively, cleaned his wounds of dirt and blood, had wrapped the multitude of gashes in clean linens, and bound his broken leg tenderly. He'd be left mesmerized by the grass-green eyes of the lilting voice as it murmured endless, meaningless stories on the days when the pain became unbearable.

Lyria turned the corner from the kitchen into the main room and frowned at the barely touched bowl of soup sitting on the low table. She looked up and glared at the aged man laid out on the cot in front of the hearth, his upper body propped up with several pillows.

"Is my cooking really that much worse than my mother's that you can not even manage a few sips for the sake of my pride?" She'd meant to sound menacing, but the effect was ruined by the smile working its way into the corner's of her lips and the slight twinkle in her eye.

"I would drink a hundred bowls of this fair nectar if only it were served to me by a fair maiden with hair spun of gold."

Lyria quirked her eyebrow at his eloquent and elaborate speech, but inside her heart sunk a little

She settled to her knees at his side and picked the bowl and spoon up off of the table. Swiftly, she ladled a portion and gently held it to Darius' lips, "Is the pain that bad today?"

Darius caught her worried eyes and tried to hide the anguish he was certain she would find in his own, "I have had worse. Do not worry."

But she would, he knew. And when she finished with the soup, she'd bring him another syrup for the pain or poultice for his wounds. She would softly rub a cooling cream over his swollen knuckles and he would revel in the blissful, painless sleep that would claim him soon after. Such had been their routine ever since that fateful night his ship had crash-landed just outside her village and her father had taken pity on a wounded, crippled old man.

Ten nights ago, Lyria's father had stumbled into their home carrying what had appeared to be a bloodied heap of rags. Only after he'd swiftly deposited the mess in front of the fire, her mother rushing to his side to assist, could Lyria make out the arms, legs, and wrinkled face of the injured man. The next couple of hours had sped by in a frenzy of activity, her brothers scurrying about to find clean linen for bandages and bedding, her father building up and maintaining the fire for warmth, and Lyria endlessly boiling water and assisting her mother to clean every gash and bandage every wound.

Darius had awoken sporadically over the next couple of days. Long enough to soothe his parched throat with small sips of broth or water, or relieve his tired mind of feverish dreams. Later, when he'd been able to remain awake for hours at a time and could finally speak, Lyria had asked him about the names he'd cried out in his sleep and the strange machine that his crew was now working furiously to repair.

He'd known that for all her family had done to save his life and the lives of the crew, they deserved at least an explanation. But some memories were just too painful to bear repeating and most of them were too horrible to belong in the minds of good, kind people. So Darius had evaded her questions, feigned sleep to avoid lying to her about the ship, about the crew, about everything.

He'd asked her countless questions about her planet, her village, and her people. He'd asked about her mother's shop and her father's library. He'd watched as her face grew animated when talking about her father's books and scrolls. The lines creasing her face when she spoke of the farming chores she so despised fascinated him. He would laugh heartily at the tales she told of her brothers' mischievous antics and for a time he would forget that they were on the run from the Wraith. For those several hours when nothing else mattered but her sweet, lilting voice and glowing face, and his ability to listen, he was safe. He felt a lightness he could not describe, like the burdens of his life had been lifted off his stooped shoulders, and he became ever more resolute in his decision to tell her nothing.

But when she'd stood over him with wide, frightened eyes one thunderous night, her hair disheveled, robe thrown hastily over her nightclothes, and rubbed his back as he emptied the pitiful contents of his stomach after a particularly vivid dream, his resolve had vanished. He'd shakily told her everything. He'd begun with the Wraith culling his planet, taking his wife and children. Killing nearly everyone. Destroying everything he'd ever known. He and Valius, his brother, had been deep in the forest on a hunting trip and had returned only to find their village decimated and few survivors.

Lyria had softly wiped at the beads of sweat on his face as he'd explained how they'd gotten hold of a ship and a crew, how'd they'd gone up against the Wraith sometimes to win, but mostly to lose. He'd averted his eyes, couldn't bear to watch her trust of him shatter when he'd swiftly told her of the atrocities they'd committed - that he'd committed. Then he'd swiftly caught her shocked stare when he'd adamantly, desperately, told her he would do it all over again. The Wraith had shown no mercy. Neither had he.

Lyria had gone silent following his confession. She wouldn't look at him. She sat frozen on the edge of his cot, twisting her robe between her fingers. Lightening their only illumination. Thunder the only sound between them. He'd taken that time to lay back and recall the images of his nightmare. Darius shuddered as memories of that fateful night, much like this one, assaulted his mind. He hadn't told her everything, hadn't told her what the Wraith had done to him mere months ago.

Minutes passed, maybe hours, he hadn't been sure of the time exactly, only that Lyria still hadn't moved from his side, still hadn't uttered a word. Her head bowed down, golden hair falling forward, obscuring her face from his quiet scrutiny. But she had finally turned to him and he'd breathed a sigh of relief when he'd seen sadness, not anger or resentment on her face.

"I cannot presume to judge what you have done as I do not understand most of it," she'd begun in a whisper. "These creatures you speak of. These Wraith?" He'd nodded slowly.

She'd inhaled sharply, her hand brushing against his arm. "You say there are other planets, that these other people know no peace because the-" She searched for the right word.

"Galaxy," he'd supplied.

Lyria had frowned slightly at the word. "Yes. The galaxy is overrun by these Wraith." She'd shaken her head slightly and continued on, her voice a shade louder. "Before your ship landed here, we'd never even met people from another world, let alone creatures that feed on one's life source."

Darius had fallen back against his pillows, unseeing eyes cast upwards towards the ceiling. A world untouched by the Wraith. How was that possible?

Lyria had then swiftly clasped his hand and his gaze had shifted to her piercing eyes, as she spoke once more, "I can not understand it, Darius. But I do believe you."

And he thought that maybe that was when he'd fallen in love with her.

Now, five days later, they sat together once more in their customary spot on his cot by the fire. She deftly feeding him, he cursing his body for failing him once again. He needed to shift his mind away from thoughts of her. He did what had become customary – he asked her more questions, "Will you tell me the history of your people again?"

She swiftly swiped at a rogue drop of broth trailing down his chin before meeting his gaze and nodding, a smile playing at her lips. She'd recounted the tale many times for him over the past few days, yet he never seemed to tire of it. She never seemed to tire of telling it either. Maybe because when she spoke to him, he listened to her as if she were all that mattered in that moment of time. Or maybe she just liked being at the center of his pale, gray gaze. It was at times like these, when those forbidden thoughts would rise in her mind, that she would give herself a mental shake and remind herself that he was old enough to be her grandfather. And yet, there was that unshakeable feeling she'd get whenever she'd catch him staring at her through the corner of her eye - gazing at her with an indescribable look with eyes that had seen too much, but still held the brightness of youth. Regardless, she would humour him again.

"Countless generations ago," she began. "Our ancestors fought a terrible war. There are no accounts to say who it was they had been fighting or why. All we know is that by the end of it, those who had not perished in the war, were left injured, stricken by disease and famine. By all accounts, they were dieing.

"Whole villages had been decimated - hundreds of people were massacred or had simply vanished. They had no hope of living out the season. All their crop stores had been destroyed. There were scarcely people healthy enough to care for those wounded let alone tend to the fields, whatever had remained of them." Lyria set aside the empty bowl and spoon on the table and settled herself more comfortably. She rested her back against the stone wall of the hearth, her knees pulled gently to her chest. She watched his eyes follow her hands as they arranged her skirt about her feet and smiled when his cheeks turned rosy at her notice.

"When the eve of their death was upon them and a powerful storm swelled the streams and thunderous claps filled the air, there came from the sky a blinding light. From it emerged two of the most beautiful Goddesses one could ever imagine." Her tone had gone wistful, her eyes glazed at the remembrance of her ancestors' salvation. Darius' heart leaped a little in his chest at the joyful light of her face.

"These were the Moon Goddesses. Protectors of my people, come to save them from certain death. They had witnessed the destruction and cried tears of sorrow at the pain their people suffered, but could not come to their aid without the consent of all the Sen'Dae. When this consent had been granted, the Goddesses enveloped all the people in that pure light, curing the sick, healing the wounded, and committing all of them to a deep, dreamless slumber, so their minds might heal from the horrors they had endured.

"When they awoke, it was to find themselves renewed in body and spirit. The villages were repaired, their fields restored, and the harvested crops whole again. It was a miracle delivered onto us by the Sen'dae. A gift of life for our unwavering devotion." Her voice went silent as she waited for him to finish the rest of her story as he had taken to doing.

"And since then your people have not known war nor strife. The Sen'Dae keep you safe. Keep you protected," Darius continued, his hoarse voice a sharp contrast to her soothing tone.

"Even from the Wraith," he added softly to himself. Not for the first time, he was left troubled by the thought.

The slamming of the front door suddenly interrupted his silent reverie. A sharp gust of wind blew into the house, ruffling lace curtains and blowing the blanket off of his feet. Lyria looked up briskly from where her gaze had settled on the floor, jumping to her feet when her mother dashed into the house, a veritable whirlwind of swirling skirts, tousled hair, and flailing arms.

"Mother!" Lyria cried and made a grab for one of her mother's hands. "Mother! What's wrong? What has happened?"

The older woman shook off her daughter's calming hands. She fixed a murderous glare on the elderly man who'd partaken of their hospitality and deceived them all with vicious intent.

"Is this how your people repay our kindness and good will?" she spat venomously, her green eyes lit with rage, every muscle quaking with barely restrained fury, "You threaten our children with death and steal from us our goods and harvest?"

Darius' mind and body froze at her words. He tried to reply, tried to tell her that something had gone horribly wrong. There had been some sort of misunderstanding, but the unmistakable roar of a ship's engines drowned out any stutter or mumble that may have made it past his lips. He stared blindly out the window and watched his crew take off in a barely repaired ship. He watched them break through the atmosphere and disappear from sight.

The house was silent again, save for the sharp pants and furious gasps of Lyria's mother. Lyria sat unmoving as memories of a dream she'd almost forgotten rose unbidden into her mind's eye. Images of corpses and streams of blood flowed through her head. She let out a sudden gasping sob before flying out through the open door.

"Lyria! No!" Darius yelled. His throat rebelled at the sudden effort and his body was racked by a fit of violent coughing as he slid off the edge of the cot and onto the floor.

Despite her anger, Lyria's mother automatically bent down to steady the old man, blindly reaching for the mug of water to soothe his aching throat. Darius pushed her helping hands aside, trying desperately to get to his feet, to chase after Lyria, to stop the inevitable. His heart cracked a little when his legs shook violently and refused to support his weight. It broke entirely when he collapsed in a heap by the hearth and heard an unmistakable whine - the herald of their demise.

Lyria's mother turned and frowned at him when she too heard the sound, "They are coming back? Sen'Dae save us!" She gasped, one hand fluttering to her chest, eyes slowly filling with dread.

Darius sobbed in anguish as his worst fear came to fruition. He thought of this planet, untouched by evil, innocent to the ravages of war, and cried out in frustration and anger at his helplessness. By crippling his body, aging him beyond recognition, robbing him of all possible happiness and hope, the Wraith had ensured he could do nothing for these people. He could do nothing to save Lyria.

"No. They're not coming back," he breathed. Darius reached up and grabbed the older woman's hand, pulling her down until her tearful eyes were level with his.

"Run. Hide!" he spoke fiercely. "Find your children, your husband. Find Lyria." His voice broke on her name, but he cleared his throat and continued, "Get to the mountains. Do not look back."

He pushed her away from him and she stumbled into the low table. Her hands were gathered tightly to her chest. She stared with wild eyes back at him. She didn't move.

"Go!" Darius bellowed, louder than he thought possible. He'd startled her into motion. She stumbled towards the door. Finally gaining control of her feet as she grabbed the doorframe to steady herself and breaking into a run as she flew out the front door.

"Go," Darius whispered this time. He bowed his head and prepared himself for the inevitable as the whines and hums grew louder and screams began to pierce the air.

"Your Gods have abandoned you."

* * *

I see you all out there. Remember, reviews (bad or good) are love.


End file.
